Want to hire SEO company services to increase website traffic for the company you work for but cannot convince your management team ? How annoying to know how to increase revenue and maybe even reduce expenses through switching from more costly, less effective marketing to search engine optimization. Yet, you are unable to convince your leaders that hiring an SEO company to increase website traffic and ultimately fill the sales pipeline is the way to go. Seems when you broach the topic of an internet marketing strategy, all they hear is the sound of adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. “Wake up, sir!”, you think to yourself, “haven’t you got time for anything but sucking your thumb with that dumb blanket?!” Well, maybe you think more highly of your boss than I have some of mine, if so, good for you. But the frustration of being unable to convince your manager to make a move to increase business can prove unbearable.
Put on your sales hat to try these techniques to convince business leaders that hiring SEO services will increase website traffic, will result in more inquiries or sales, and will add to the bottom line.
4 Steps to Convince Management to Hire SEO to Increase Website Traffic
1. Use Pictures and Facts to Educate
What SEO is and is not, may be clear in yor mind, but may not be (probabably IS not) the same picture your boss has in his or her head when thinking about SEO. In fact, sometimes leaders (believe it or not!) avoid something because they are clueless and don’t want to feel dumb…so keep that in mind when presenting these ideas. To most, SEO seems mysterious and something they have heard bad things about. Use this infographic to prepare yourself to bring awareness of SEO’s effectiveness to your manager.
Here is a specific idea to prepare tangible facts for your boss’s consumption AND make it his or her idea! Find a graph that shows what a company’s website traffic looked like before and after using SEO tactics…maybe find a couple examples and if they are in a similar industry, the better. Where to find such graphs? You can probably look at SEO companies’ websites to find client portfolios or ask one or two companies that you would hope to hire for some examples. Hey, this also helps you be prepared for the question of whom to hire after you so persuasively convince! Now, how to make the whole thing his or her idea (as in most cases, this is the path of least resistance when trying to sell to management on an idea). Hmmmm…how about sharing this illuminative information about how SEO increases website traffic and ask for help in figuring out how such an increase would improve the bottom line of your company. Likely, you don’t’ have all the facts to make the needed assumptions and the leader might. Or even better, they might have to go get someone else involved (and interested). Engage your management in figuring out what the results of spending money on SEO can produce for the company.
Do your homework so you can talk about options like whether content should be created inhouse or by the SEO. According to Pulizzi’s Content Management Institute (PDF), more than half of companies with more than 100 employees outsource some content creation. Smaller companies tend to try to write their own content probably because they can’t afford to outsource it efforts, according to this. You can check out some more information about how companies of various types and sizes utilize SEO services.
2. Prove Competition Uses or Hires SEO Services
If your competition is not hiring SEO services, then you would be ahead of the game to employ SEO…if your competition is using SEO, then it is a must for your company…see how you can use either situation to add to your persuasive argument? You sly dawg! Especially if your leadership has already begun asking the questions like how their competition is on the first page of search results and outperforming you, it is likely they are using SEO strategy. But how can you know? Here are a couple insider SEO tips. First, go to keywordspy.com and type in the competition’s domain. If you see well-constructed keywords besides their brand name, they likely use SEO. And while you are there look for the PPC tab to see if they use search engine marketing (SEM) or online pay-per-click ads. There are other ways to tell if they are using SEO services and what tactics they are using. To go into detail here would be exhaustive (to you and me), but feel free to pop over to request a free consultation in which I will happily review what is going on with your competition.
If your company does not want to be left behind, they at least need to know what their competition is doing. Then do it better.
3. Define the Current Situation
After presenting awareness of SEO, its power and potential, then making it your boss’ idea to investigate. Oh, and then scaring him or her about what the competition is doing…the ground is set to figure out what your company has in place to move forward from. This is probably the time to find some positive things to rebuild confidence levels. A little good news goes a long way. Does your company have an attractive website with lots of content? Great! Is the content updated regularly through adding new pages or through blog posts? Terrific! If not, that should be added to the scope of work to include in an SEO strategy. Does your company have a Google Analytics account so a baseline of current website traffic can be assessed? If so, take a look to see how long people are staying on your websites and which pages keep them longer. That will be great information to use as you or your SEO service builds more content. If you are getting traffic, but no inquiries or sales, then maybe the problem is that you need stronger calls to action. Yes, again, an experienced SEO company can help with that.
Share these insights with your boss to help him or her understand where your company needs more help. When a leader sees that both the problems and the solutions can be measured, they begin to see that SEO is not a great mystery, but really a business service that can be measured to evaluate its value. As with any business decision, if your company leadership can see a business case for an increase in the bottom line, they will be more open to it. Especially if they understand that the analytics account belongs to them and they can see independent results.
4. Shore Up Their Confidence in You and in SEO
So by now you have them seriously thinking about the value of SEO to their business and maybe they need just a little more confidence to give the “go”. Leaders are more comfortable moving forward if they know they have someone in their court who can help them navigate the unknowns. So more homework for you, but you will find yourself being more valuable to the company, so a little extra work should pay off. Check out how to use various tools and show some of the results to your leadership:
- Keyword Spy – the free version provides incomplete, but useful information. Especially if you want to try SEM, you can see how to construct a campaign and…be prepare for what your new SEO offers. It always helps if you know what is going on to ensure that you are getting quality services from your SEO company.
- Keyword research tools – Google Keyword Tool, Bing Webmaster Tools, and Wordtracker (free trial) offer ways to see the numbers of searches done for a keyword. You don’t want your company to optimize for a keyword that gets no traffic! The tools work a little differently, but are fairly easy to get the hang of. (Yes, you can contact me for some free help with those.)
Do you know someone at a company with a SEO success story? Now is the time to invite a representative to have lunch with your boss and you to give that last assurance that real companies hire SEOs to increase website traffic and succeed. And your company can do it, too!
Have you had success in convincing your leadership to hire SEO services? Did you succeed? Fail? Did the SEO work as planned? Comment below to share your experiences! Need help with any of the ideas? Please do contact our internet marketing company, we want to help!
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